When weighing the pros and cons of purchasing a PlayStation console, be it the PS4 or PS5, one of the biggest pros is the benefits of being a PS Plus subscriber. Along with offering exclusive deals, discounts, and the ability to play games online, PS Plus also has a select offering of free games for subscribers each month. In recent years, the service has expanded from offering smaller titles to full-blown AAA games. With the introduction of the PS5, PS Plus now also offers one free PS5 game to owners of the newest Sony console.
So far, 2021 has been an excellent year full of great, free PS Plus offerings, but to truly understand just how much has been given away, gamers need to take a look at the total length of every PS Plus game. Broken down by month and then added together at the end, the playtime information for each title is coming straight from HowLongToBeat.com. The information used from the site is from the "Main Story" section, as that acts as a relative baseline for how long someone might spend with the game at a minimum if they're set on completing it. If there is no story mode, that will be noted in this list.
RELATED: Why Switch Online Doesn't Have to Compete With PS Plus or Game Pass
January kicked 2021's free PS Plus games off with three excellent titles. Maneater for PS5 clocks in at around 10 hours, with Greedfall and Shadow of the Tomb Raider for PS4 hitting around 22 hours and 12.5 hours respectively.
February featured the first PlayStation exclusive included in the 2021 PS Plus offerings with Destruction AllStars on the PS5. The game doesn't have a story in the traditional sense, so HowLongToBeat's three-hour playtime seems a little short. For the sake of consistency, any games that are multiplayer-only or otherwise lacking a real story element will be listed as 10 hours long. For PS4 owners, February also offered Control: Ultimate Edition (12.5 hours) and Concrete Genie (five hours).
Not only does PS Plus offer great games for both the PS5 and PS4, but it occasionally offers PSVR games as well. March offered the PSVR exclusive Farpoint as a free title, which is roughly five hours long. PS5 owners got the three-and-a-half-hour-long Maquette as well as Final Fantasy 7 Remake (33.5 hours). Remnant: From the Ashes (13.5 hours) on the PS4 rounded out the list.
After March, the free PS Plus games begin to follow a similar repeating pattern: one free PS5 title and two free PS4 games. April started the trend with Oddworld: Soulstorm for PS5 owners clocking in around 19.5 hours, as well as Days Gone (37 hours) and Zombie Army 4: Dead War (10.5 hours) for PS4 subscribers.
Following April's lead, May had one PS5 game and two PS4 games. Wreckfest (19 hours) featured on PS5, while Battlefield 5 (10 hours) and Stranded Deep (17 hours) were the PS4 games. It's worth noting that HowLongToBeat has Battlefield 5 listed as only six hours to beat. However, because Battlefield 5 has such an emphasis on its multiplayer modes, judging its length on the story alone seems like it's missing something. For this reason, it's been given an additional four hours of playtime on this list to be in line with other multiplayer experiences.
RELATED: Comparing the PS Plus Free Games for July 2021 With Xbox Free Games with Gold
June saw the debut of the spy-themed asymmetrical multiplayer game Operation: Tango. Luckily for PS5 PS Plus subscribers, its three-and-a-half-hour length was free for the month. Alongside Operation: Tango were the PS4 titles Star Wars: Squadrons (nine hours) and Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown which, like other multiplayer-focused titles on this list, is getting the 10-hour playtime boost.
With the recent announcement of its sequel at E3 2021, A Plague Tale: Innocence seems like the perfect title to include in PS Plus for July. It was given to PS5 owners for free along with its free PS5 upgrade and clocks in around 10.5 hours of playtime. Additionally, PS Plus subscribers also got Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and WWE 2K Battlegrounds, two multiplayer-focused titles for another 10 hours each.
It's currently July at the time of writing, and the PS Plus games for August 2021 haven't fully been announced yet. However, the most recent State of Play let slip that Hunter's Arena: Legends would be coming to PS Plus subscribers in August. It's currently unclear if it's the PS5 game or one of the PS4 titles, but either way, it'll be free for subscribers. Hunter's Arena: Legends is another entry in the battle royale genre, so it too will be given a 10-hour playtime for the purpose of this list.
Now that the numbers are in, it should be clear just how great of a deal PS Plus is for its subscribers. For only $60 per year, subscribers are given a seemingly endless supply of content. When adding it all up, however, based on playtime, the current total hours of content in PS Plus so far is 300 hours for PS5 owners and 232.5 hours for PS4 subscribers. Additionally, PSVR owners get an extra five hours of content with the inclusion of Farpoint in March. It goes without saying that certain players might get different mileage out of these titles, as the multiplayer experiences might hook people for longer or shorter than the standard 10-hour mark that was given to each in this list.
While this deal certainly seems sweet, it's actually much sweeter for PS5 subscribers. Not only do they get the 300+ hours of content from 2021, but they also get access to the 20 games included in the PS Plus Collection. While there's some overlap with games like Days Gone appearing on both lists, the value of a PS Plus subscription cannot be overstated.
What's even greater about PS Plus is that there are still five months left in the year, meaning that the 232.5-300 hours of content will continue growing. Assuming that the subscription service keeps pumping out the same number of titles, 2021's final hour count for PS Plus games could total around 500 hours worth of gameplay.